RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Friends and rel­a­tives of 21-year-old Eoin Kaz­im Pe­ters are mourn­ing his death fol­low­ing a fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dent along the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way in Gas­par­il­lo ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Pe­ters, of Ar­joon­s­ingh Dri­ve, Dum­fries Road, La Ro­maine, died af­ter be­ing pinned un­der a Kia H100 pick­up truck.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said around 3 am, High­way Pa­trol South of­fi­cers re­ceived a re­port from the Com­mand Cen­tre of an ac­ci­dent on the south­bound lane near the Gas­par­il­lo Over­pass. Ag Cpl Stevens and PC Changar ar­rived to find the white Kia H100 pick­up, reg­is­tra­tion TCN 8807, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 feet off the east­ern side of the road­way, flipped on­to its side near the Fens ware­house.

Fire of­fi­cers from Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion, led by Fire Sta­tion Of­fi­cer Karmine, used the jaws of life to re­move Pe­ters’ body. W/Cpl Ce­de­no and of­fi­cers from the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion lat­er se­cured the scene.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Rhon­da Balkissoon pro­nounced Pe­ters dead and or­dered the body re­moved to the San Fer­nan­do Mor­tu­ary pend­ing a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ar­joon­s­ingh Dri­ve yes­ter­day, res­i­dents said they did not know Pe­ters but had seen him dri­ving the white van in the street. A res­i­dent said Pe­ters might have been rent­ing in the area but said they did not know his fam­i­ly.

On his Face­book page, sev­er­al friends mourned his pass­ing.

Justin Gird­har­rie wrote: “Fly High, Bro.” Sunil Maraj wrote: “Very Sad, he was a good guy. Al­ways smiles.”

So far this year, road traf­fic ac­ci­dents have claimed the lives of at least 95 peo­ple, in­clud­ing dri­vers, pas­sen­gers, and pedes­tri­ans, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from Ar­rive Alive and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

In Ju­ly, Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our signed a le­gal no­tice that re­moved de­mer­it points from most fixed penal­ty traf­fic of­fences, re­tain­ing them on­ly for a small num­ber of se­ri­ous dri­ving of­fences such as drunk dri­ving, dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of drugs, and dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied.

Since the scrap­ping of the de­mer­it point sys­tem, there have been calls for stricter ad­her­ence to traf­fic laws, im­proved dri­ver ed­u­ca­tion, and stronger en­force­ment to pre­vent fur­ther fa­tal­i­ties.

Pe­ters’ death comes as mo­torists are al­so fac­ing a sub­stan­tial in­crease in traf­fic fines start­ing from Jan­u­ary 1, with penal­ties for speed­ing, seat­belt vi­o­la­tions, and oth­er of­fences set to dou­ble.